The invention is generally related to the transmission and reception of audio broadcasts, e.g., from radio stations and the like.
Radio has been an important part of our culture for many years. Despite competition from relatively newer broadcast media such as television and the Internet, many people still find radio to be an important source of news, information, and entertainment. Radio has also significantly advanced since the days of analog AM and FM broadcasts. For example, radio broadcasts are now capable of being broadcast in a digital format, typically using a packet-based communication medium, and often providing better sound quality than with older analog technologies. Digital radio broadcasts are also capable of transmitting additional information to listeners, e.g., station call letters, program information, etc.
One continually strong market for radio stations has been listeners in automobiles, particularly due to the fact that visual information available from television and the Internet is not compatible with keeping one""s eyes on the road. Mobile radio receivers commonly known as car radios or car stereos have long been provided as standard equipment in automobiles and other vehicles.
Mobile radio receivers have always suffered from the problem of varying signal strengths of audio broadcast signals such as radio broadcasts. Radio stations are capable of transmitting over only a certain geographical area, so the farther a receiver gets from a radio transmitter, the weaker the signal, and the poorer the reception by the receiver. Topographical factors such as buildings, tunnels, mountains, etc. can also affect signal strength. Thus, as a listener of a particular radio station rides along in an automobile, it is not uncommon for the reception of the audio broadcast signal to continually increase and decrease in quality.
Reception problems are often more problematic for travelers, as such listeners are constantly driving into and out of the reception areas for a wide variety of radio stations, the programming content of many if not all of which is unknown to such listeners. Consequently, as such listeners encounter poor reception of a radio station of interest, they are often required to manually scan through a radio band to attempt to locate other interesting radio broadcasts.
As one example, a listener may prefer a certain type of music, e.g., rock or country music. If a rock listener loses reception of a rock station, he or she will typically be forced to scan through other stations looking for other rock stations that are more likely to play songs that are interesting to the listener.
As another example, rather than being interested in a certain genre, a listener may be listening to a specific program such as a sporting event. Invariably, reception will become poor at a critical time in the event, e.g., in the last inning of a tight baseball game. Locating another station for the sporting event in such an instance is even more problematic than simply finding another station playing a general type of music, as the likelihood of finding the sporting event is lower, and time constraints necessitate the use of haste in locating the event as quickly as possible.
In addition to the inconvenience and frustration associated with manually searching through a radio band, any manual interaction with a radio receiver presents some safety concerns, as a listener is required to at least in part focus on interacting with the radio receiver rather than on paying attention to the road. Therefore, both convenience and safety would be well served by automating the selection of desirable audio content with a radio receiver.
The invention addresses these and other problems associated with the prior art by providing an apparatus, program product, and method that automate the selection of audio broadcast signals based upon a user preference criterion, typically by receiving a first audio broadcast signal from a first source, and concurrently monitoring a second source to locate a second audio broadcast signal matching a user preference criterion. The user preference criterion may represent a particular type of song, program, artist, genre, etc., or in the alternative may represent one or more specific programs, songs, etc. Thus, by monitoring for sources that match the user preference criterion concurrently with receiving a signal from a first source, automation of the selection of matching audio broadcast signals (e.g., by notifying a user of a match, automatically selecting a matching audio broadcast signal, etc.) is greatly facilitated.
These and other advantages and features, which characterize the invention, are set forth in the claims annexed hereto and forming a further part hereof. However, for a better understanding of the invention, and of the advantages and objectives attained through its use, reference should be made to the Drawings, and to the accompanying descriptive matter, in which there is described exemplary embodiments of the invention.